Archive for April, 2011

Day 1 – Do you believe in god?/What religion are you?
Day 2 – Do you believe in an afterlife? What do you believe happens when you die?
Day 3 – Are you proud to be from whatever country you are from?
Day 4 – What is your view on gay marriage? Homosexuality in general?
Day 5 – Do you think sex before marriage is okay?
Day 6 – How do you feel that sex education should be handled in schools?
Day 7 – Do you want to get married and/or have kids?
Day 8 – Do you think any drugs should be legalized? Do you think there should be an age for drinking?
Day 9 – Pro-life or pro-choice?
Day 10 – Have any opinions about year-round schooling?
Day 11 – What do you think about prostitution? Should it be legal?
Day 12 – Do you think men today are too “wimpy” and need to “man up”? How do you feel about gender roles as a whole?
Day 13 – Do you think there should be an age to get tattoos/piercings without the consent of a parent?
Day 14 – Do you believe in aliens?
Day 15 – Do you believe in regrets? Do you have any terrible ones?
Day 16 – What do you want to happen to your body when you die?
Day 17 – How about that cloning stuff?
Day 18 – What is your take on people who self harm (cutting, burning, scratching etc etc.)
Day 19 – Do you think high schools should give out free contraceptives?
Day 20 – What do you think about plastic surgery?
Day 21 – What do you think about the death penalty?
Day 22 – Do you say your country’s national anthem/pledge of allegiance when it is said/listened to?
Day 23 – What do you think about thinspo?
Day 24 – Euthanasia – Your thoughts?
Day 25 – Do you think violent video games should be banned?
Day 26 – Which do you think should be taught in schools: Evolution or creationism?
Day 27 – “Illegal” downloading – Yay or nay?
Day 28 – Do you think zero tolerance policies are effective in achieving their objectives?
Day 29 – Do you feel as though women should be able to walk around topless like men? Why or why not?Day 30 – Do you think the internet should be censored?

No, no, a thousand times no!

The internet is such a wonderful place BECAUSE it’s uncensored. Think about China. If their government doesn’t like what a website says, you can’t get to it. Last I knew, wikipedia was blocked in China, and youtube too. I mean, there are ways around it, but whenever the government finds one of those sites, it blocks it, and spends a good amount of time looking for it.

If the internet was censored, we wouldn’t be able to go to wikileaks and find out about all the stuff the government has been doing with our tax dollars while trying to keep it a secret. We wouldn’t know about Bradley Manning, who is being kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, and is forced to sleep nude, and for a while didn’t even have a blanket, who Obama says is guilty even though he hasn’t had a trial yet (whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?), all for allegedly leaking information to wikileaks. We wouldn’t know about all the revolutions going on around the world (why would a government let people know about revolutions, they might want to uprise and have their own…). And imagine life without wikipedia or youtube, because they might contain information the government doesn’t like. Or have a google like China’s google, where things on the blacklist aren’t allowed to show up in search results. We probably wouldn’t be able to access websites critical of the war, or the government….they could censor ANYTHING. And you might not even know about it, because they’d likely censor sites talking about censorship. Of course, it would all be in the interest of “national security”, but how is restricting the free flow of ideas a national security treat, unless they’ve got something to hide that they don’t want us knowing about that so big that people would uprise if they knew?

The greatest advantage of the internet is the openness of it. Please preserve that. There’s a lot of shit on the internet, but there’s a lot of good things on the internet too. If you try to censor the bad, you will inevitably censor the good. And who would be the censor, and who would make sure the censor was being “responsible”, and if they was someone watching the censor, who would watch that person? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Then again, I don’t really believe in censorship, period (Go go first amendment!). So I might be a little biased…

And that has been my 30 day challenge. Bravo to those of you who stuck through it. Hello to those of you who found my blog during this. I shall be returning to normal posting soon. I’ve gotten a lot of ideas that got thrown to the wayside during this, because I often have limited blogging time, and I’ve been using it up on this. So…it’s been fun! See you all soon!

Day 1 – Do you believe in god?/What religion are you?
Day 2 – Do you believe in an afterlife? What do you believe happens when you die?
Day 3 – Are you proud to be from whatever country you are from?
Day 4 – What is your view on gay marriage? Homosexuality in general?
Day 5 – Do you think sex before marriage is okay?
Day 6 – How do you feel that sex education should be handled in schools?
Day 7 – Do you want to get married and/or have kids?
Day 8 – Do you think any drugs should be legalized? Do you think there should be an age for drinking?
Day 9 – Pro-life or pro-choice?
Day 10 – Have any opinions about year-round schooling?
Day 11 – What do you think about prostitution? Should it be legal?
Day 12 – Do you think men today are too “wimpy” and need to “man up”? How do you feel about gender roles as a whole?
Day 13 – Do you think there should be an age to get tattoos/piercings without the consent of a parent?
Day 14 – Do you believe in aliens?
Day 15 – Do you believe in regrets? Do you have any terrible ones?
Day 16 – What do you want to happen to your body when you die?
Day 17 – How about that cloning stuff?
Day 18 – What is your take on people who self harm (cutting, burning, scratching etc etc.)
Day 19 – Do you think high schools should give out free contraceptives?
Day 20 – What do you think about plastic surgery?
Day 21 – What do you think about the death penalty?
Day 22 – Do you say your country’s national anthem/pledge of allegiance when it is said/listened to?
Day 23 – What do you think about thinspo?
Day 24 – Euthanasia – Your thoughts?
Day 25 – Do you think violent video games should be banned?
Day 26 – Which do you think should be taught in schools: Evolution or creationism?
Day 27 – “Illegal” downloading – Yay or nay?
Day 28 – Do you think zero tolerance policies are effective in achieving their objectives?Day 29 – Do you feel as though women should be able to walk around topless like men? Why or why not?
Day 30 – Do you think the internet should be censored?

Hahahahaha. Anyone who knows me knows my position on this.

Let me put it this way: A few years ago, I was contemplating walking down the street in the town I live topless. Just to figure out what the laws were, and to fight them if they didn’t allow women to walk down the street. But I had to look for a job, and I have self esteem issues, so a friend did it first. Fun times. Only whining I have was that I wasn’t there to see it. I’m glad she did it, I really wanted to see how it turned out (She was arrested, but…I forget. They either didn’t charge her with anything, or they did but dropped it really quick afterwords? I forget…) There’s also another reason I didn’t quite realize until afterwords. There was a lot of creepy pressure put on me, where the focus was more on “We want to see your tits” instead of the message. There’s a difference between celebrating boobies and objectifying boobies. When the boobies seemed to become more the focal point than the reason for the boobies, I decided that I wasn’t going to go topless around those people. I wasn’t going to willingly go along with my objectification. As a feminist, I fight against objectification of people, not willingly become the focal point of objectification….

That’s the problem, isn’t it? Society has made it so that a perfectly normal piece of the female body has become something to leer at. It angers me that there are people saying they’re celebrating women’s empowerment…and yet objectifying them and reducing them to a pair of boobs. Times like these I really want to rework society, but that involves talking, so let’s start talking..

(Note: Those people refers to a certain few people who put pressure on me to show my boobs, or were obviously only in it to see some breasts. It wasn’t referring to any group in particular. So don’t you dare dump your drama on me….)

It’s essentially the same body part that guys have. Just a bit more fatty tissue, and a gland that a guy doesn’t have that can make milk. That’s essentially it. Breasts, in their natural state, are not inherent sexual. It’s only our society, with it’s weird sexual norms, that makes it as such. That’s why mothers will sometimes have trouble breastfeeding (you know, using the breasts for their actual biological function!) in public. Sorry, but as far as I’m concerned, a baby’s right to good nutrition is more important than your desire to not be made to feel a bit uncomfortable.

I once heard someone say “Of course they’re sexual! They harden when aroused!” It was a guy. Obviously, this guy must not be that in tune with his body, because men’s nipples harden when aroused too. Silly billy. :-p

Look at other cultures around the world. They have topless women, and the world hasn’t ended! And….gasp!…their societies seem to work just fine!

The argument against it that really bothers me is the one I like to call the “DEAR GOD WHY WON’T ANYONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!!” argument. “I don’t want my kid to see that!” “I don’t want to explain that to my kid!” “It will confuse children!” Those re three arguments I’ve often heard leveled against women being topless in public. But guess what? Your child was probably suckling at your breast a few years ago. And sorry that you want to shelter your poor child against the horror that is a female’s topside, but guess what? Too bad. If I had a child, I wouldn’t want it to be exposed to your stupidity, but I’d have to suck it up and deal ith it, right? You have no right to not be offended. If you don’t like it, leave the situation, but you can’t stop someone from doing something just because you don’t like it. The color pink offends me, so now no one can wear the color pink? And it won’t confuse the children, unless you’ve taught them that women should cover it up. I’m pretty sure most children ave figured out that adult females have boobies. They exist. And so I’m sure they can figure out that if a woman takes off her top, the boobies will be there. If they ask….say “Oh she took off her top!” and if the kid asks why, say you don’t know, but that’s what she decided to do. That easy.

I feel as though it also leads to the shame many females feel about their body. We’re told we have to be sexy sexy sexy, and fit this perfect model of what the media says is the “perfect female” (which is usually airbrushed so much that that is literally unobtainable….)…but we’re also told that we have to hide this part of our body, or we’re sluts, whores, tramps, who just want attention, but yet when guy takes off his shirt…at worst, nothing happens. At best, they’re lauded about their rippling muscles. It’s easy to take away from that that female breasts are shameful things, why else would there be so much societal pressure to hide them?

I’m glad it’s legal here, in the town I live in (maybe the whole state? Not quite sure on the laws….) If it’s hot on a summer day, and my boyfriend takes his shirt off, I want to be free to take my shirt off and walk down the street with him. Hell, especially if I’ve got a bra I’m wearing…those tings promote boob sweat like you wouldn’t believe, which is a rather annoying sensation…

This was all going to be rearranged…but I’m on a family member’s computer, and it’s giving me trouble simply typing, never mind how it tried to eat a crapton of my text when I tried to move it around. I swear, it must be possessed by a demon or something. So temperamental! Jeez! So so sorry that it jumps around so much. This is what most posts look like, until I edit them into a more coherent narrative….enjoy your look into the inner mind of the Momo! With minimal edits, only a few spelling errors…(also, wordpress doesn’t think objectifying or slut are words. Hahahahaha.)

Day 1 – Do you believe in god?/What religion are you?
Day 2 – Do you believe in an afterlife? What do you believe happens when you die?
Day 3 – Are you proud to be from whatever country you are from?
Day 4 – What is your view on gay marriage? Homosexuality in general?
Day 5 – Do you think sex before marriage is okay?
Day 6 – How do you feel that sex education should be handled in schools?
Day 7 – Do you want to get married and/or have kids?
Day 8 – Do you think any drugs should be legalized? Do you think there should be an age for drinking?
Day 9 – Pro-life or pro-choice?
Day 10 – Have any opinions about year-round schooling?
Day 11 – What do you think about prostitution? Should it be legal?
Day 12 – Do you think men today are too “wimpy” and need to “man up”? How do you feel about gender roles as a whole?
Day 13 – Do you think there should be an age to get tattoos/piercings without the consent of a parent?
Day 14 – Do you believe in aliens?
Day 15 – Do you believe in regrets? Do you have any terrible ones?
Day 16 – What do you want to happen to your body when you die?
Day 17 – How about that cloning stuff?
Day 18 – What is your take on people who self harm (cutting, burning, scratching etc etc.)
Day 19 – Do you think high schools should give out free contraceptives?
Day 20 – What do you think about plastic surgery?
Day 21 – What do you think about the death penalty?
Day 22 – Do you say your country’s national anthem/pledge of allegiance when it is said/listened to?
Day 23 – What do you think about thinspo?
Day 24 – Euthanasia – Your thoughts?
Day 25 – Do you think violent video games should be banned?
Day 26 – Which do you think should be taught in schools: Evolution or creationism?
Day 27 – “Illegal” downloading – Yay or nay?Day 28 – Do you think zero tolerance policies are effective in achieving their objectives?
Day 29 – Do you feel as though women should be able to walk around topless like men? Why or why not?
Day 30 – Do you think the internet should be censored?

When she was younger, in elementary school, she rode the bus to school. Some of the kids were unruly little asshats. There were problems with them doing mean and unsafe things the entire year. At one point, one of them pinned down my little sister, with his arm across her chest, so that she couldn’t move. Her arms were pretty much pinned down so that she couldn’t move, but, like the smart kid she is, she struggled, and managed to swat at the kid to get him off of her because…hello, if some strange kid you barely knew who was bigger than you pinned you down and made it hard for you to move, you’d try to get him off of you, right? I know I would.

The kid ended up getting a week of out of school suspension. Originally…they tried to give MY SISTER the same punishment. Why? Because they saw in the bus camera that my sister had swatted the kid and they had a “zero tolerance” policy.

My mom was not pleased. She called the school and raised holy hell about it. We had always been taught growing up that we weren’t allowed to start any fights, but if we were defending ourselves, we wouldn’t get in trouble….and yet here the school was getting my sister in trouble for trying to defend herself! They wouldn’t take away the punishment for my sister, since she hit the kid, but they dropped it down to lunch detention for a week and a talk about how you shouldn’t hit people.

This isn’t an isolated incident. I’ve heard about people getting seriously hurt by bullies because the bully tries to beat them up, but they don’t want to fight back and get in trouble, so they just take it instead of defending themselves (which, in my experience, would be better. Bullies tend to pick on the weak targets. That ignoring bullies thing? Doesn’t work, because it just means you won’t fight back. Once I started insulting them back was when they stopped teasing me).

So no, I don’t think zero tolerance policies achieve their objectives. There’s almost always cases where something was justified. One size does NOT fit all. Etc etc etc….

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Day 1 – Do you believe in god?/What religion are you?
Day 2 – Do you believe in an afterlife? What do you believe happens when you die?
Day 3 – Are you proud to be from whatever country you are from?
Day 4 – What is your view on gay marriage? Homosexuality in general?
Day 5 – Do you think sex before marriage is okay?
Day 6 – How do you feel that sex education should be handled in schools?
Day 7 – Do you want to get married and/or have kids?
Day 8 – Do you think any drugs should be legalized? Do you think there should be an age for drinking?
Day 9 – Pro-life or pro-choice?
Day 10 – Have any opinions about year-round schooling?
Day 11 – What do you think about prostitution? Should it be legal?
Day 12 – Do you think men today are too “wimpy” and need to “man up”? How do you feel about gender roles as a whole?
Day 13 – Do you think there should be an age to get tattoos/piercings without the consent of a parent?
Day 14 – Do you believe in aliens?
Day 15 – Do you believe in regrets? Do you have any terrible ones?
Day 16 – What do you want to happen to your body when you die?
Day 17 – How about that cloning stuff?
Day 18 – What is your take on people who self harm (cutting, burning, scratching etc etc.)
Day 19 – Do you think high schools should give out free contraceptives?
Day 20 – What do you think about plastic surgery?
Day 21 – What do you think about the death penalty?
Day 22 – Do you say your country’s national anthem/pledge of allegiance when it is said/listened to?
Day 23 – What do you think about thinspo?
Day 24 – Euthanasia – Your thoughts?
Day 25 – Do you think violent video games should be banned?
Day 26 – Which do you think should be taught in schools: Evolution or creationism?Day 27 – “Illegal” downloading – Yay or nay?
Day 28 – Do you think zero tolerance policies are effective in achieving their objectives?
Day 29 – Do you feel as though women should be able to walk around topless like men? Why or why not?
Day 30 – Do you think the internet should be censored?

First off, I don’t believe that downloading music (or anything else for that matter) online is the same as theft. You steal a CD from the store, that store loses the physical disc. The store has lost money, because it paid for said physical disc. When you download music, it’s making another copy. No physical material is taken from another. No one loses money.

And yes, I do believe no one loses money. You can’t equate a download with a lost sale, because oftentimes the person wouldn’t have bought it in the first place. I’ll even use an example. There’s an “artist” (using the term loosely here…I kid, I kid, he’s probably not as bad as I have it in my head) called Gunther. He’s…well, I suppose the best way to explain Gunther is to let you experience him yourself…
Yeah. All of his songs are like that. Cheesy and corny and horribly funny. My friend downloaded a Gunther CD off the internet… because he wanted to laugh at it. He never would have actually bought it. And then I have another friend who downloads music because he can’t afford it. If he couldn’t download…he wouldn’t have bought the CD’s anyways, obviously, because he couldn’t afford them. So, despite what the RIAA tells you, a download does not always equal a lost sale.

In fact, there’s a study that said that downloading music helps with sales. People like to know what they’re listening to, before buying it, which makes sense. I wouldn’t want to buy a CD on the hopes that more songs than that one single that I hear everywhere are “worth it”. So they download it, and, if it’s good, they’ll buy the CD. Or, they might not buy the CD, or they’ll go to shows for bands they might never have heard about otherwise and buy their merchandise. It’s like the radio….free advertising.

Some people just don’t see it as a big deal. Artists get very very little from their record sales. A few pennies, maybe? Most of the rest goes to the record labels. They figure that since most of the money goes to the record label, which they could care less about, they might as well download the music and buy some merchandise or make a donation instead…do something that would benefit the artist (they tend to get more money from merchandise sales or concert tickets…) instead of supporting the music company.

Also, random note: How is downloading music that much different than using youtube? You still hear the songs as many times as you want for free….only difference is that you need to be connected to the internet to use youtube…and due to the “heat” on the “normal” downloading music methods, people have made sites and programs that will take the audio from a youtube video and make it a mp3, so that it’s harder for the RIAA to find the downloaders. People will download music regardless of what the laws are. You close down one venue, others pop up to fill the void. It’s the hydra, each chopped off head grows more, except that so far there’s so way to burn the stump to cause others to not pop up.

Another argument that people bring against the RIAA is that they can’t provide them the same options as the “underground” can. Go to a private torrent site. Almost any one will do. Search something. As long as it isn’t obscure you should be able to find it in a variety of file formats and bitrates, ranging all the way up to lossless, and even sometimes if it’s obscure. And unlike most songs downloaded through “legal” means, there are no restrictions about how many of your computers you have them on, or what device you can load it on. So more variety of file formats, in varying qualities, with no restrictions. It’s not hard to see why people might prefer the underground route compared with the “legal” means, where you often have no say in the file format you get the music in, what quality, or what restrictions are placed on it in a misguided attempt to stop the files spreading (as I said before, people are crafty. From a quick google search, there are many ways to avoid these restrictions, Apple, for instance, if you burn the files to a CD and then rip them again, the DRM will be removed. Steve Jobs even stated this in an interview…)

There are some people who download for moralistic reasons. The RIAA is severely pissing people off. Treating potential customers like criminals is not a very good business tactic. Plus, there’s the whole matter of the way the RIAA “catches” people downloading is severely flawed. It’s been proven that if you want to, without too much work, you can get “takedown notices” (things the RIAA sends to your ISP that they then pass on to you, saying “Hey, we caught you, knock it off. And oh, by the way, even if you knock it off, we might still decide to sue you….” Or something similar. I worked at my college’s helpdesk for a while, that handled stuff like this, so I got the gist, even though I wasn’t allowed to look at any of them due to confidentiality stuff) to a networked printer, that’s obviously not sharing music. The RIAA even says that ripping a CD YOU YOURSELF BOUGHT to your own personal computer, and not sharing it or anything, is actually ILLEGAL AND COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT!!! Why? Unauthorized copy. They say they won’t go after you for it…but it’s the fact that they presume benevolence over something as silly as that that gets a lot of people’s goats. So they want you to also download a digital version of the music you already own if you want to load songs onto a MP3 player, or to make a mix cd for yourself… so they’ve declared that they will no longer buy music from artists supported by the RIAA. Indie artists, they’ll buy, but if the artist is on a record label that’s part of the RIAA, they refuse to buy it, and will only download it.

So…tl;dr? If people want to “illegally” download…so be it. The RIAA seems to be an obsolete company trying to hold back the market because they can’t keep up and are losing money due to their inability to adapt.

Sorry for going all over the place with this. I have lots of ideas about this, and it’s hard to incorporate all of them into a coherent post while slaving over finals, freaking out over grades and papers, and finding an apartment (and a roomie, maybe…it’s complicated…) I had links that I was going to include, but I’m too busy at the moment, but if you want any of the links I used for my info let me know.

Day 1 – Do you believe in god?/What religion are you?
Day 2 – Do you believe in an afterlife? What do you believe happens when you die?
Day 3 – Are you proud to be from whatever country you are from?
Day 4 – What is your view on gay marriage? Homosexuality in general?
Day 5 – Do you think sex before marriage is okay?
Day 6 – How do you feel that sex education should be handled in schools?
Day 7 – Do you want to get married and/or have kids?
Day 8 – Do you think any drugs should be legalized? Do you think there should be an age for drinking?
Day 9 – Pro-life or pro-choice?
Day 10 – Have any opinions about year-round schooling?
Day 11 – What do you think about prostitution? Should it be legal?
Day 12 – Do you think men today are too “wimpy” and need to “man up”? How do you feel about gender roles as a whole?
Day 13 – Do you think there should be an age to get tattoos/piercings without the consent of a parent?
Day 14 – Do you believe in aliens?
Day 15 – Do you believe in regrets? Do you have any terrible ones?
Day 16 – What do you want to happen to your body when you die?
Day 17 – How about that cloning stuff?
Day 18 – What is your take on people who self harm (cutting, burning, scratching etc etc.)
Day 19 – Do you think high schools should give out free contraceptives?
Day 20 – What do you think about plastic surgery?
Day 21 – What do you think about the death penalty?
Day 22 – Do you say your country’s national anthem/pledge of allegiance when it is said/listened to?
Day 23 – What do you think about thinspo?
Day 24 – Euthanasia – Your thoughts?
Day 25 – Do you think violent video games should be banned?Day 26 – Which do you think should be taught in schools: Evolution or creationism?
Day 27 – “Illegal” downloading – Yay or nay?
Day 28 – Do you think zero tolerance policies are effective in achieving their objectives?
Day 29 – Do you feel as though women should be able to walk around topless like men? Why or why not?
Day 30 – Do you think the internet should be censored?

Evolution. Fo’ sho’. At least in public schools. If you have a religious school, and you want to teach the children that the world was created in 7 days and all that other jazz, go ahead. But pushing your religious version of how the world came to be on a bunch of children who may or may not be the same religion as you is not cool. That’s when you should go and teach the things that have evidence besides the bible behind it, because, sorry to break it to you, but people outside of your religion (whatever it may be) often do not believe our holy book is the truth.

Or something. I’m cranky.

Religions are like penises. Do whatever you want with them when in private, but force them upon other people or shove them down their throat. :-p

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Day 1 – Do you believe in god?/What religion are you?
Day 2 – Do you believe in an afterlife? What do you believe happens when you die?
Day 3 – Are you proud to be from whatever country you are from?
Day 4 – What is your view on gay marriage? Homosexuality in general?
Day 5 – Do you think sex before marriage is okay?
Day 6 – How do you feel that sex education should be handled in schools?
Day 7 – Do you want to get married and/or have kids?
Day 8 – Do you think any drugs should be legalized? Do you think there should be an age for drinking?
Day 9 – Pro-life or pro-choice?
Day 10 – Have any opinions about year-round schooling?
Day 11 – What do you think about prostitution? Should it be legal?
Day 12 – Do you think men today are too “wimpy” and need to “man up”? How do you feel about gender roles as a whole?
Day 13 – Do you think there should be an age to get tattoos/piercings without the consent of a parent?
Day 14 – Do you believe in aliens?
Day 15 – Do you believe in regrets? Do you have any terrible ones?
Day 16 – What do you want to happen to your body when you die?
Day 17 – How about that cloning stuff?
Day 18 – What is your take on people who self harm (cutting, burning, scratching etc etc.)
Day 19 – Do you think high schools should give out free contraceptives?
Day 20 – What do you think about plastic surgery?
Day 21 – What do you think about the death penalty?
Day 22 – Do you say your country’s national anthem/pledge of allegiance when it is said/listened to?
Day 23 – What do you think about thinspo?
Day 24 – Euthanasia – Your thoughts?Day 25 – Do you think violent video games should be banned?
Day 26 – Which do you think should be taught in schools: Evolution or creationism?
Day 27 – “Illegal” downloading – Yay or nay?
Day 28 – Do you think zero tolerance policies are effective in achieving their objectives?
Day 29 – Do you feel as though women should be able to walk around topless like men? Why or why not?
Day 30 – Do you think the internet should be censored?

Well, I’m fairly certain they don’t cause violence, so no.

You see, when I was younger, and still in contact with the piece of shit who is on my birth certificate (really, he’s a piece of shit. I’m not just being all angsty teenager here. I’m glad I don’t have contact with him), he had a computer. I, as a 6 or so year old kid, wanted to play games. Wanna know what game I ended up playing, that was my favorite? Doom. If you don’t want to click the link… it’s a pretty violent game. It’s been called a murder simulator by many video game critics. This copy even had a mod installed where instead of one of the monsters, there was a floating Bill Clinton head….

I’ve never killed anything in real life, besides scary bugs and the hopes of people asking me out :-p. So…I don’t really buy that. Recently did an hour long presentation about a similar thing, where it was found that it only really has an effect on children if they’re playing the violent video game for over 15 hours a game.

So no, I don’t want to ban violent video games. I wouldn’t give the to a kid (just because I don’t like introducing kids to violence. But that’s a different story…) but that doesn’t mean adults shouldn’t be allowed to play them. And if you’re a parent…play with your kid, don’t treat video games like a baby sitter. If you find something you don’t want your kid to encounter, use it as a teaching moment, or a discussion moment, so that the kid can learn from it or whatever.

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So…I’ve recently been reading some of Y: The Last Man recently. While flipping through the pages, I found something quite hilarious and felt the need to share it with you! WARNING: Republicans will likely not find this image funny, so you might as well just skip the rest of this post…

Notice: No copyright infringement intended. I don’t own the rights to the comic. Y The Last Man is written/drawn by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra and published by Vertigo. I just want to show the picture. No money has been obtained from the showing of this picture, or anything like that. If the owners want me to take it down, please contact me, and I will do so, although do keep in mind that it’s free advertising for your comic, and it’s only part of a single page out of a really long comic. Etc etc etc.

Hahahaha. I don’t think republicans are “worse than terrorists”, but as soon as I saw it I laughed and thought about posting it to the blog. Sorry to my republican friends, but I just found this hilarious. Probably because before I came strange “crazy radical” independant Momo, I was crazy democrat Momo, and still have quite a few leanings that way. Plus the current crop of republicans have been scaring the bejesus out of me. If you’re going to cut things, cut the useless stuff that no one likes, instead of the stuff people actually use. I’ll get to this in another post, because I feel my rage building about the particular subject that I’m thinking of and I’m going to need to let it out somewhere….

But yeah. I’m not too fond of the democrats, but I really don’t like the republicans.

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Day 1 – Do you believe in god?/What religion are you?
Day 2 – Do you believe in an afterlife? What do you believe happens when you die?
Day 3 – Are you proud to be from whatever country you are from?
Day 4 – What is your view on gay marriage? Homosexuality in general?
Day 5 – Do you think sex before marriage is okay?
Day 6 – How do you feel that sex education should be handled in schools?
Day 7 – Do you want to get married and/or have kids?
Day 8 – Do you think any drugs should be legalized? Do you think there should be an age for drinking?
Day 9 – Pro-life or pro-choice?
Day 10 – Have any opinions about year-round schooling?
Day 11 – What do you think about prostitution? Should it be legal?
Day 12 – Do you think men today are too “wimpy” and need to “man up”? How do you feel about gender roles as a whole?
Day 13 – Do you think there should be an age to get tattoos/piercings without the consent of a parent?
Day 14 – Do you believe in aliens?
Day 15 – Do you believe in regrets? Do you have any terrible ones?
Day 16 – What do you want to happen to your body when you die?
Day 17 – How about that cloning stuff?
Day 18 – What is your take on people who self harm (cutting, burning, scratching etc etc.)
Day 19 – Do you think high schools should give out free contraceptives?
Day 20 – What do you think about plastic surgery?
Day 21 – What do you think about the death penalty?
Day 22 – Do you say your country’s national anthem/pledge of allegiance when it is said/listened to?
Day 23 – What do you think about thinspo?Day 24 – Euthanasia – Your thoughts?
Day 25 – Do you think violent video games should be banned?
Day 26 – Which do you think should be taught in schools: Evolution or creationism?
Day 27 – “Illegal” downloading – Yay or nay?
Day 28 – Do you think zero tolerance policies are effective in achieving their objectives?
Day 29 – Do you feel as though women should be able to walk around topless like men? Why or why not?
Day 30 – Do you think the internet should be censored?

If people want to die, let them die. That part seems simple to me. And if you believe it’s a sin…well, you aren’t the one burning in eternal hellfire, why the hell do you care? More room in heaven for you, huzzah!

It gets a bit murkier when the person isn’t conscious. If the person has stated that they don’t want to live like that, then let them die. If the person has stated they want to live, then let them live. Otherwise, leave it up to the family and the loved ones. I know some people have fucked up family and loved ones, but the majority are good people who want to do best by their family members. And they’re likely the ones footing the bill.

And while I’m on the topic: Family and loved ones: If I’m ever in a coma that they don’t think I’ll come out of..please pull the plug? I mean, if you want to wait a little bit, that’s okay, but if there’s no change…let me go. I don’t want to live like a vegetable for the rest of my life, draining away people’s money. The part of me that is me is probably already gone by that point, let me go. And if I’m not, I won’t blame you. Just don’t let me live like a vegetable.

Share this:

Like this:

Day 1 – Do you believe in god?/What religion are you?
Day 2 – Do you believe in an afterlife? What do you believe happens when you die?
Day 3 – Are you proud to be from whatever country you are from?
Day 4 – What is your view on gay marriage? Homosexuality in general?
Day 5 – Do you think sex before marriage is okay?
Day 6 – How do you feel that sex education should be handled in schools?
Day 7 – Do you want to get married and/or have kids?
Day 8 – Do you think any drugs should be legalized? Do you think there should be an age for drinking?
Day 9 – Pro-life or pro-choice?
Day 10 – Have any opinions about year-round schooling?
Day 11 – What do you think about prostitution? Should it be legal?
Day 12 – Do you think men today are too “wimpy” and need to “man up”? How do you feel about gender roles as a whole?
Day 13 – Do you think there should be an age to get tattoos/piercings without the consent of a parent?
Day 14 – Do you believe in aliens?
Day 15 – Do you believe in regrets? Do you have any terrible ones?
Day 16 – What do you want to happen to your body when you die?
Day 17 – How about that cloning stuff?
Day 18 – What is your take on people who self harm (cutting, burning, scratching etc etc.)
Day 19 – Do you think high schools should give out free contraceptives?
Day 20 – What do you think about plastic surgery?
Day 21 – What do you think about the death penalty?
Day 22 – Do you say your country’s national anthem/pledge of allegiance when it is said/listened to?Day 23 – What do you think about thinspo?
Day 24 – Euthanasia – Your thoughts?
Day 25 – Do you think violent video games should be banned?
Day 26 – Which do you think should be taught in schools: Evolution or creationism?
Day 27 – “Illegal” downloading – Yay or nay?
Day 28 – Do you think zero tolerance policies are effective in achieving their objectives?
Day 29 – Do you feel as though women should be able to walk around topless like men? Why or why not?
Day 30 – Do you think the internet should be censored?

Not too keen on it, to be honest…

(For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s the wiki article:

Day 1 – Do you believe in god?/What religion are you?
Day 2 – Do you believe in an afterlife? What do you believe happens when you die?
Day 3 – Are you proud to be from whatever country you are from?
Day 4 – What is your view on gay marriage? Homosexuality in general?
Day 5 – Do you think sex before marriage is okay?
Day 6 – How do you feel that sex education should be handled in schools?
Day 7 – Do you want to get married and/or have kids?
Day 8 – Do you think any drugs should be legalized? Do you think there should be an age for drinking?
Day 9 – Pro-life or pro-choice?
Day 10 – Have any opinions about year-round schooling?
Day 11 – What do you think about prostitution? Should it be legal?
Day 12 – Do you think men today are too “wimpy” and need to “man up”? How do you feel about gender roles as a whole?
Day 13 – Do you think there should be an age to get tattoos/piercings without the consent of a parent?
Day 14 – Do you believe in aliens?
Day 15 – Do you believe in regrets? Do you have any terrible ones?
Day 16 – What do you want to happen to your body when you die?
Day 17 – How about that cloning stuff?
Day 18 – What is your take on people who self harm (cutting, burning, scratching etc etc.)
Day 19 – Do you think high schools should give out free contraceptives?
Day 20 – What do you think about plastic surgery?
Day 21 – What do you think about the death penalty?Day 22 – Do you say your country’s national anthem/pledge of allegiance when it is said/listened to?
Day 23 – What do you think about thinspo?
Day 24 – Euthanasia – Your thoughts?
Day 25 – Do you think violent video games should be banned?
Day 26 – Which do you think should be taught in schools: Evolution or creationism?
Day 27 – “Illegal” downloading – Yay or nay?
Day 28 – Do you think zero tolerance policies are effective in achieving their objectives?
Day 29 – Do you feel as though women should be able to walk around topless like men? Why or why not?
Day 30 – Do you think the internet should be censored?

Nope!

Still kinda bitter about the whole being forced to say it when I was a kid without anyone explaining it to me. If you’re gonna force me to swear loyalty or whatever…at least tell me what I’m saying. It’s not that hard to explain what it means in little kid words.

But even beyond that…no. I pledge allegiance to no one but myself. And I’m not going to pledge allegiance to a country that’s doing so many things I don’t agree with. I can’t really remember saying it since 8th grade (they might have had it in high school. But if so, I can’t remember. If I said it, I was probably just mouthing it so that the teachers wouldn’t yell at me, ’cause those things tended to be mandatory…) It would take an incredible (probably impossible) shift for me to even consider saying it again. I’m not going to say hollow words that I don’t agree with just because I’m expected to say it. I’ve always been told to stand by my beliefs. So now I’m doing so.

I’m not wording this right at all, and for that, I apologize. I’m experiencing major burnout (or something similar) as well as the cold that never ends plus stress because my hedgehog makes weird noises and I worry constantly about if he’s okay. But if you want any clarification, leave it in the comments. You can call me an unpatriotic asshole all you want really, ’cause at least the first part is true. You’re the one who’s reading this. Should have expected it from my previous post about if I’m proud to be where I’m from :-p